A concrete specialist’s economic outlook:
‘Things will turn around’

Tom Woodall for Progressive Dairyman

Editor’s note: The author sent the following text in an e-mail to multiple dairy business associates Oct. 27, 2008, as the Dow Jones Industrial average prepared to close out the month of October more than 2,000 points lower than it began the same month.

I have a sign in my shop and office that reads:

I have been in this business a long time.

I have been cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked about, lied about, lied to, hung-up, held up and robbed.

The only reason I am staying in business now is to see what the hell is going to happen next.

I remember way back in the 1970s reading a story from a co-op newsletter. I was so impressed with the moral of the story in the downturn of the late ’70s that I cut it out and taped it to my fridge. Three refrigerators later and as many recessions, I know not where the original is but was able through the wonders of the Internet to once again get a copy to paste up in these times that once again seem so familiar.

For those of you that have never seen these troubling times in business or those that have short memories, this is something for all of us to read, remember and ponder upon.

Turn off the news and live your lives as ambitiously as you always have and more. Things will turn around. They always do, if we work at it without giving up.

I’m still shouting from the roadside! How ’bout you? PD